Sportwashing: a growing international concern in sport-for-development

Abstract

With organisations today required to operate in more ethically and socially responsible ways, different types of ‘washing’ in sport are emerging, while instances of illiberal practices, such as human rights issues, are becoming a growing concern worldwide. Thus, to situate sportwashing as a global issue, the research draws on four international case studies from England (Birmingham 2022 Commonwealth Games), Taiwan (2022 Workers’ World Cup), Zambia (Response Network) and Scotland (Scottish basketball). Through this global lens, the research offers insights into structural incentives for sportwashing amongst efforts to leverage sport for social development. Collectively, the cases highlight how organisations operate under banners of social impact; albeit underpinned by broader economic, political, and performance-based objectives. Within the individual cases, nine themes: commercialisation, participation and talent development; institutional legitimacy and reputation building; funding and power beneath democratic prestige; and social exclusion and legacy framing. Furthermore, it is argued that sportwashing manifests by over-exaggerating social impact through and from sport. While the extent of sportwashing varies across ecosystems, such altruistic public-facing notions of social impact actively obfuscate lived realities and go unnoticed, subsequently constraining people’s development. A key issue entails that sportwashing is largely unchallenged until it is too late to proactively address, with the main ramifications experienced by the people and communities that programmes were meant to support. The research thus advances SFD for understanding the negative impact of washing in social impact‑driven environments. It also highlights the need to document sportwashing cases individually, as considering sportwashing broadly conceals individual contextual nuances.